


again.

by moonrise31



Series: once, twice, and again until it's over [15]
Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: F/F, Reincarnation AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-20 23:47:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17032239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonrise31/pseuds/moonrise31
Summary: In which Nayeon has Jihyo running through her mind long before they even meet, and wonders what she should make of it all.





	again.

Sometimes, Nayeon dreams.

It comes in flashes, like the brilliance of a single firework before the night melts back into darkness:

Held hands, her fingertips soft against Nayeon’s palm. Smiles so full that her mouth bursts into a warm laugh, nestling into Nayeon’s head like homespun cotton. And those eyes, her eyes -- 

Her eyes are so clear, Nayeon wakes up before they can blink even once.

Nayeon’s never able to fall asleep quite the same way, spending the remaining hours before dawn constantly shifting underneath her blankets. Because she can’t get rid of that tingling in her hands, that joy ringing in her ears like a memory from a time even before she had learned how to speak.

She can’t get rid of those eyes, either. Because as soon as she gets to work every day, they curve up at her from the next-door cubicle, crinkling at the corners as Jihyo says, “Good morning, unnie. Did you sleep well?”

Nayeon smiles back and simply says, “Good morning.”

Nayeon doesn’t quite understand why she dreams. Sure, she’s drawn to Jihyo, but the woman’s been plaguing her nights since before they became coworkers; to say that Nayeon was surprised when Sana had introduced their newest addition to the team one day in February would be an understatement. And okay, Jihyo is pretty, objectively speaking, and maybe Nayeon could be interested.

Still, there’s something so intimate, so heavy about Nayeon’s dreams that she can’t chalk it up to something like base desires. She imagines herself as one of those hospital patients in the dramas she watches, the ones who wake up barely remembering anything besides their names. Because every night, she watches a part of herself play out as the remnants of a damaged film reel: snippets of a life her body has lived through, even though her mind draws only blanks.

But Nayeon knows that she and Jihyo haven’t met before; she’s spent days and weeks trying to work casual mentions of their pasts into conversation. It’s crazy, her inner Jeongyeon tells her; _real_ Jeongyeon lives on the other side of Seoul, but being attached at the hip since birth means they’ll never really be apart.

Nayeon does it anyway. So she knows now that Jihyo grew up on the opposite side of the Han river from her, barely an hour’s bus ride separating their childhoods. But they’d never gone to the same school, hadn’t attended the same dance classes, didn’t know any of each other’s immediate family.

Nayeon thinks that dream-Jihyo knows something that neither she nor Jihyo do, and that’s why Nayeon’s nights are always filled with teasing chuckles and stares that twinkle like the early morning sky through the crack in her curtains every time she starts awake again.

Long before Jihyo arrived, Nayeon had been battling her shortened sleep schedule with large doses of coffee and the occasional thought that Jeongyeon’s suggestion of a shock collar whenever she dozes off might actually make some sense. Still, there’s only so much of the shadows under her eyes that makeup can cover, and only so much time before Jihyo decides to comment on it.

“Unnie,” Jihyo says one day, on their lunch break. “Have you ever thought about taking time off?”

“Of course,” says Nayeon as she pops a piece of kimbap into her mouth. “My parents still plan trips once or twice a year, and I always go with.”

Jihyo nods before reaching over, her nimble chopsticks snagging a portion of Nayeon’s lunch. “Yeah, I know. But have you ever thought about just relaxing on the weekend? You don’t have to work overtime so often.”

Nayeon shrugs, pointedly picking up Jihyo’s thermos of tea and taking a large gulp. “I don’t work _all_ weekend. I just get bored sometimes, sitting around doing nothing.” And wondering why Jihyo is so stuck inside her head, but she doesn’t add that.

“Well,” Jihyo says as Nayeon hands the thermos back. “Next time you get bored, you can text me.” She sets the thermos down in between them, the bottom tapping sharply against the table. Nayeon starts to nod yes --

(“Unnie, you’ll write to me, right?”

Nayeon’s chin dipped, just once. Her lips twitched, probably in a smile, but her heart wasn’t in it. So she reached out instead, wiping at the wet streak trailing down Jihyo’s cheek. “Shouldn’t I be the one asking you that? You’re the one going off to fight a war.”

“I’m not fighting,” Jihyo automatically corrected, like Nayeon knew she would. “I’m just helping.”

“And you’ll help a lot of people,” Nayeon said. “Don’t forget to tell me about every single one of them in your letters, okay?”

Jihyo nodded, inhaling sharply. She glanced down, grip on her suitcase tightening. “I’m scared, unnie,” she mumbled.

“Hey.” Not another second, and Nayeon’s arms had already pulled Jihyo in. “That’s not what you became a nurse for, is it? You’ll be great.” 

She felt more than heard Jihyo’s answer, the younger girl’s breath muffled by the shoulder Jihyo’s pressed her face into. “I hope so.”

“You’ll be great.” Nayeon whispered her next words into the crook of Jihyo’s neck. “You’ll be safe.”)

“-- Unnie?”

Nayeon blinks. She’s underwater. The world is fuzzy, undefined, like she’s floating somewhere in between.

“Unnie, are you okay?” Jihyo’s hand meets her arm. 

Nayeon finally breaks through the surface. She shakes her head, her entire body shivering from some uncontrollable chill. “Sorry, I…” 

Jihyo is leaning in, cheeks dry, but the shadow of the same worried frown tugging at her mouth. 

Nayeon clears her throat. “I guess I zoned out for a little bit.”

Jihyo straightens again, fingers slipping down to give Nayeon’s wrist a last squeeze before retreating. “That’s why I’m saying you need to take more breaks.”

“Right,” Nayeon breathes. “I’ll think about it.”

That night, she dreams of gray streets and gunfire smoke. Sometimes, dream-Jihyo is next to her, medical texts scattered around her in a paper-thin halo. Other times, Nayeon sits alone, waiting by a coal-fire stove with only a dog-eared letter to warm her hands.

She flinches at every shot in the distance.

Nayeon wakes up with dream-Jihyo’s brave smile glowing on the backs of her eyelids. And hopes that shattered shrapnel and blood-soaked hands won't ever sweep it away.

-

Jihyo invites Nayeon out to noraebang the following weekend with some of their coworkers.

Mina, from Accounting, and Dahyun, who works in the cubicle across from them, unfortunately end up tangled in other obligations. Which leaves Nayeon squeezed into a darkened room with only Jihyo, the colored spots of light painting mischievous hues on the latter’s cheeks as she selects the first song and drops the second microphone in Nayeon’s lap. “Come on, unnie! You look like you can sing.”

Nayeon stares at the microphone for a moment, thinking about the last time she’s tried to sing in a space besides her shower. She’d done it a lot as a high school student, but that was then, and she’s here now.

Then the opening notes for the most recent comeback of Nayeon’s favorite girl group start to play and, well. Nayeon figures that if she can’t let go in a noraebang room with the literal girl of her dreams brushing elbows with her, she won’t ever learn to sleep at night.

Jihyo’s excitement is contagious. Soon Nayeon is bouncing along, the both of them screaming at the tops of their lungs with the barest regard for the highlighted lyrics shown on screen. Jihyo’s wearing the tambourine like a crown, Nayeon having placed it there during a particularly enthusiastic rendition of IU’s “Twenty-three”. 

The latest instrumental fades out, and Jihyo’s back to flipping through the booklet. Her eyes light up as she points. “How about a song from your generation, unnie?”

“I’m barely two years older than you,” Nayeon reminds her. Jihyo types in the song’s code, and Nayeon’s jaw drops as a Seo Taiji song begins to play. “Park Jihyo! I wasn’t even alive when this came out.”

“Too bad.” Jihyo’s grin is as pure as it is shit-eating, and Nayeon can’t help but laugh. Jihyo grabs her wrist and raises her mic to her mouth. “Come on, unnie. Sing!”

So Nayeon sings. And knows the rhythm a little better than she’d expected, actually. Maybe because her parents had played the song a lot before, off of a tape they’d stick into the car’s cassette player when Nayeon had barely been tall enough to see out the backseat window.

Nayeon glances over at Jihyo as the younger girl starts to belt out the chorus. The lights are still flashing across her features, and Nayeon feels time start to slow. Jihyo’s eyes sparkle green, then purple, then red, then -- 

(They were kind of poor. Just two kids who had dropped out of high school; Jihyo almost made it to graduation, but then her father passed, and she and her mother had to divide going to work and taking care of her younger two sisters.

Nayeon, meanwhile, didn’t really see the point of school when she already earned enough working at a chicken restaurant. Sure, the water in her apartment didn’t run hot all the time, and she sometimes forgot to pay the electricity bill. But she had a car that worked despite its age, and a job that still let her send money to her parents living in the countryside.

And she had a girlfriend.

Nayeon always dropped by the bar Jihyo worked at after her own shift ended. She parked in the lot outside, window rolled down so she could hear the fading notes of Seo Taiji’s latest hit every time the bar door swung open. 

This time, Jihyo was the one exiting the building, and Nayeon couldn’t hide the grin pulling at her cheeks when Jihyo stepped up to her car. 

“Hey,” said Jihyo, leaning so close that Nayeon could count the number of teeth in her sly smile. “Want to sit in the back with me?”

They’re still right outside Jihyo’s workplace, and Jihyo was the one to always keep Nayeon’s awareness of public decency in check. But Jihyo ended up on Nayeon’s lap anyway, sighing into kisses that tasted of soft glowing lamplight on a quiet street. Sharp as the reality Jihyo sometimes didn’t want to go home to, and sweet like the discount sugar Nayeon stirred into her coffee every morning she stayed over.

Jihyo couldn’t sleep over that night, but she promised that they could have most of the weekend. Nayeon hummed, because she didn’t need to see Jihyo every day. Not when she could snatch moments like these, Jihyo tracing patterns over the knuckles of the hand Nayeon had on the clutch as she pulled out of the parking lot.

“How was work?” Jihyo asked; she never forgot to, and Nayeon found it endearing, even if her answer never amounted to much.

“We got a new mop,” she said idly. “The boss seemed pretty happy. As if it’s going to make me clean any faster, or something.”

Jihyo laughed, squeezing Nayeon’s hand slightly. “You should do your job, unnie.”

“I do,” Nayeon protested. “There’s just no point in getting the floors _that_ clean if they’re only going to get dirty again.”

“If that’s the case,” Jihyo said as Nayeon braked at the stoplight, “Why would you brush your teeth if you’re only going to eat again? Or go to sleep when you’re just going to be awake again?”

“Exactly.” Nayeon turned and grinned at her. “You understand me.” The light flashed green and Nayeon shifted the gears, accelerating her car into the intersection.

Headlights glared bright in her periphery. She glanced out her window, eyes wide at the blinding white filling her vision --)

Nayeon sits in the noraebang room. Silence fills her ears.

“Looks like our time is up,” Jihyo says. She lowers her mic, and then holds out her free hand for Nayeon to take. “Come on.”

Nayeon lets Jihyo pull her up, and quietly follows the younger woman out of the establishment. 

“It’s funny,” says Jihyo as they begin walking towards the bus stop. “I had a bit of deja vu back there.”

Nayeon looks at her. “Deja vu?”

Jihyo nods. “Yeah, you know. That feeling you get when you’ve never been to a place before, or been in that situation, but it still feels familiar.” She smiles. “I think the scientific explanation is that you’ve probably had a dream similar enough to it. Or who knows.” She shrugs. “Maybe it’s just something from a previous life.”

Nayeon stops.

Jihyo pauses just ahead, and Nayeon belatedly realizes that their elbows are hooked together. Jihyo glances at her. “Unnie?”

“You know,” Nayeon finally says, “I didn’t think you’d be a fan of Oh My Girl.”

Jihyo laughs, and Nayeon tries hard not to remember the warm backseat of a beat-up car. Or the hot, sickening crunch of metal on metal just before there was nothing at all.

-

The next Monday at work, Nayeon sits next to Jihyo during their lunch break. Mina and Dahyun slide into the seats across from them, Dahyun asking if they’d had a good time over the weekend even without Mina’s outrageous presence.

“Dahyun,” Mina says, a ghost of a smile on her face, “I get that you feel bad for not realizing I was sitting in that meeting the entire time, but this isn’t really helping.”

Jihyo almost chokes on her tea. “You _what_? I thought you were just goofing around.”

“I was sitting in the front, and Mina-unnie was in the back,” Dahyun protests. “How was I supposed to know she was there?”

“You literally stood up, looked around the entire room twice, and then yelled, ‘Mina, where are you’ for everyone to hear,” Mina reminds her.

Dahyun crosses her arms. “It’s not my fault you moved.”

“I had to talk to Sana-unnie,” Mina says mildly. “At the front of the room. Right next to you.”

Nayeon shakes her head. “Sana’s going to hold this over your head for weeks.”

Dahyun groans as she slumps onto the table. “I know. Why can’t we just have a _normal_ manager who isn’t so friendly and approachable?”

Jihyo laughs. “It’s not a bad thing.” She turns to wink at Nayeon. “Our friendly and approachable manager is the one who gave Nayeon that nice scented lotion for Secret Santa last year.”

Mina’s face brightens. “Oh yeah! The first time I talked to Nayeon-unnie was at the holiday party, when she asked me to smell it.”

Jihyo nudges Nayeon in the side. “You know there was mistletoe hanging in the doorway, right? You didn’t have to go that far if you wanted to get a girl.”

Nayeon rolls her eyes as she slaps Jihyo’s hand away, trying to hide a smile --

(Nayeon started to giggle, but Jihyo quickly clamped a hand over her mouth. The two of them crouched even lower against the palace wall, waiting until the shadows of the guards pacing the courtyard around the corner disappeared.

Nayeon stuck out her tongue. Jihyo immediately jerked her hand back, shaking it like she’d just touched the slimy skin of a frog in one of the ponds nearby. “Unnie! You licked me!”

“Sorry, sorry,” Nayeon said, without feeling very sorry at all. But she offered the sleeve of her shirt to wipe Jihyo’s palm. “Here, use mine. You can’t get your robes dirty.”

“They’ll wash them at the end of the day whether they’re dirty or not,” Jihyo said, pouting like it was a bad thing to have servants who constantly fawned over her. “I keep telling the cleaning ahjummas to take a break once in a while, but they won’t listen.”

Nayeon laughed, leaning against the smooth, cool stone behind them. “When you want to stop being the minister’s daughter and switch places, just let me know.”

“It would be the same if I switched with you,” Jihyo said confidently. “We’d still be together either way.”

Nayeon paused. Because she may only have two years on Jihyo, but when it came to the difference between twelve and ten, sometimes she felt like she was decades older. Which was why she took the other girl’s hand in hers and said, gently, “Jihyo, you know we can’t stay like this forever, right?”

Jihyo looked down at their joined hands for a moment: fingers in the spaces between fingers, entangled like a giant knot even her father’s smartest official couldn’t unravel. She swung their hands forward and back once, twice. “You don’t have to go anywhere else if you don’t want to, unnie.”

Nayeon tried to not stare too hard, to not let herself imagine what life with Jihyo would be like if Nayeon didn’t have to grow up and marry a nice boy in the village a couple of years from now. It was nothing against her parents, but she just didn’t want to. Not when she could run around the palace grounds with Jihyo instead, doing her greatest impression of the cook in the kitchens with the huge red face while Jihyo laughed at her and looked for the prettiest flowers to tuck into their hair.

“Only if you want to,” Jihyo said, casting her gaze downwards. She swung their joined hands once more, just the slightest tug this time. “I could ask my father for a favor and have you stay.”

“Of course I want to,” Nayeon blurted out. She pulled Jihyo close, the smooth silk of Jihyo’s robes brushing against her calloused fingertips as she wrapped the younger girl in the warmest hug she could offer. She pressed a kiss to the top of Jihyo’s head. “I really, really want to.”

Jihyo beamed, and in that moment, Nayeon decided that the sun must have finally decided to touch down on Earth.)

“-- Nayeon?” Dahyun is leaning over the table, eyebrows slanted in a deep frown. “Unnie? Are you okay?”

Nayeon blinks quickly, clearing her throat. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.”

“The meeting this morning was too long, wasn’t it,” says Jihyo. She grabs Nayeon’s wrist. “There’s a small sofa in the bathroom on the ninth floor, so you can nap there for a little bit. We won’t tell Sana you’re gone.”

“I’m fine, really,” Nayeon starts to say, but Jihyo is already pulling her out of her chair.

“Get well soon, unnie,” Mina calls after them. Nayeon barely hears her, Jihyo’s fingers burning like the last tendrils of a late night campfire along the inside of her forearm --

(Nayeon thought that maybe she could call this town her new home.

She tried not to think too much about the family she left behind. They’d all ended up splitting: her father towards the ocean, while her mother took her sister up north. They had promised to find each other, someday, somehow. But until then, it was better to stay safe and separated than to pray every night that they wouldn’t be the next ones to get dragged out of bed and never be seen again.

All because the queen didn’t think being Catholic was something worth living for, Nayeon thought, and tasted something vile in the back of her throat.

But this town was nice. It was small, away from the capital. There wasn’t a church, but there weren’t any burnt ashes of one, either. She paused outside of a small restaurant, leaning against one of the awning posts as she caught her breath. It should be easy to find a roof to live under, and a place to lay low and work to earn her keep so that no one asked too many questions. 

“Hello. Are you passing through?”

She looked up, staring at Jihyo smiling brightly back at her; Nayeon resisted the urge to squint against the smile. The lie she’d rehearsed for hours each day on the road now flowed easily off her tongue. “I...I was actually thinking of staying for a while. My sister is too young, and I need to support my family. My village couldn’t help with that, so I left to look for somewhere else to work.”

“Oh!” Jihyo perked up, turning to point down the street. “The Yoos are actually looking for someone to help with their store. Maybe you can ask them!”

Nayeon didn’t bother to stop the relieved grin from stretching across her face --)

“-- almost there,” Jihyo tells her. They’re standing in front of the elevator. Nayeon stares blearily at the other woman. She thinks about Jihyo’s cheeks smudged with palace courtyard dirt, or maybe with grime and sweat as she fights a battle just as dangerous as the ones armed with bullets and fire. Or maybe Jihyo’s face is now awash with the eager innocence of a small-town girl unknowingly aiding a religious refugee. 

The elevator dings. 

“Come on,” says Jihyo, tugging Nayeon behind her. They step inside --

(“--yeon-unnie!”

Nayeon looked up from her sweeping. “Jihyo. You’re done with work already?”

“I’m on break,” Jihyo told her. The younger girl held up a clay jar. “Want to join me?”

“I’ve had enough kimchi, thank you,” said Nayeon, but she set the broom aside and bowed at her boss. Mr. Yoo let her go with a wave; Jihyo dropping by and taking Nayeon somewhere for an hour or two was almost scheduled at this point.

“It’s not kimchi,” said Jihyo proudly. She grabbed Nayeon’s hand, tugging the latter into the street. “Now come on!”

They weaved through crowds and buildings and houses, reaching the outskirts before Jihyo finally slowed down. Nayeon tried to catch her breath --)

“-- here.” Jihyo pulls Nayeon out of the elevator and makes a beeline for the women’s restroom. Nayeon follows, stumbling over her own feet as she tries to take in the fluorescent lighting in the hallway and the soft, dull carpet beneath her shoes -- 

(-- on the riverbank, with Jihyo’s clay jar in between them. Nayeon pried a stone from the dirt beside her, tossing it into the river and frowning when it only skipped twice. “So, what’s this not-kimchi of yours?”

Jihyo picked up the jar and held it up with both hands, like a trophy. “This isn’t kimchi, unnie. It’s juice!”

“Juice.” Nayeon blinked. “Like from fruit?”

Jihyo nodded eagerly. “We had extra oranges lying around, so Mother let me squeeze the juice out of them.” She pushed the jar into Nayeon’s hands. “Here, drink.”

Nayeon stared down at the liquid for a moment as it sloshed inside the jar. But it definitely smelled like oranges, and she figured it would be just like eating one, except without chewing. So she lifted the jar to her lips --)

“-- vending machine?”

Nayeon leans back, holding her head as she feels the sturdy wall against her. She’s sitting on something more cushioned than grass; she glances down and realizes that she’s on the couch. 

Jihyo frowns at her. “Yeah, I’ll get you some water.”

“What about some juice,” Nayeon says before she can stop herself -- 

(“-- this?”

Nayeon froze.

It had been a bad idea to let Jihyo into her room, after all. The Yoos had been generous enough to give her their extra one in addition to letting her work in their store. But now Jihyo stood in the middle of that same room, Nayeon’s cross dangling from her hand. It swung lazily on its chain, glittering in the moonlight from the small window behind them.

Nayeon cleared her throat. And then hid her fidgeting hands behind her back. “It’s just something I found. I thought it looked pretty.”

Despite her half-hearted explanation, understanding dawned on Jihyo’s face. She turned slowly towards Nayeon, her eyes wide.

“Please,” Nayeon whispered, voice ragged. “Please, don’t tell anyone. I’ll leave tonight. I’ll disappear and you’ll never see me again. Just, Jihyo, please...”

Nayeon yelped a little when Jihyo rammed straight into her. She barely managed to stay upright, but the younger girl clinging tightly to her waist helped.

“Jihyo?” Nayeon murmured, stiff arms hovering in the air.

“It’s okay, unnie,” Jihyo said softly. “I won’t tell anyone.”

Nayeon finally let herself sink into the hug. Her hands wrapped around Jihyo’s shoulders as she exhaled. “Thank --”)

“-- you,” Nayeon says, holding the can of juice in both hands. She stares at it, wondering what it is for a moment. She remembers there’s a tab at the top, but can’t figure out how to open it --

(-- shoved the bag into Nayeon’s hands.

Nayeon stared down at it, trying to blink but too numb to do so. “What?”

“I said that we have to _go_ , unnie,” Jihyo hissed as she shifted her own bag so that the strap rested more comfortably on her shoulder. “The queen’s sent soldiers even this far out, and we’ve got maybe a day at most before they get here. So pack up and let’s go already.”

Nayeon finally managed to wrap her mind around the one piece of the puzzle that didn’t seem to be fitting quite right. “We? Us?”

“Yes,” Jihyo said impatiently. Then she huffed. “Give me that.”

Nayeon let the younger girl snatch the bag out of her hands and march around her room, stuffing random clothes and other items inside. She watched as Jihyo carefully pulled out the box holding her cross from under the mattress, wrapping it in a shawl before shoving that into the bag, too.

“You don’t have to come with,” Nayeon finally said. “Jihyo, you won’t be able to come back if you do.”

“If you think I haven’t thought about this at all since the day I found your necklace, you’re wrong.” Jihyo pulled the drawstrings tight, and then looked up. “Unnie.”

Nayeon swallowed, but the lump in her throat remained. “Jihyo…”

“Come on,” Jihyo said quietly, holding out her bag.

Nayeon took it, and let the other whisk her out the door and into the night. They ran through empty streets, past buildings and houses and the people Nayeon had come to know over the last few months.

“We can follow the river,” Jihyo said once they’d left the outskirts of town behind. “Find some place they won’t bother looking. Maybe the mountains?”

Nayeon stopped. She tugged on Jihyo’s arm. 

The other girl paused, turning to look at her. “Unnie?”

Nayeon slipped her hand gently out of Jihyo’s. Then she carefully cupped the other’s cheeks and whispered, “God bless you.”

Jihyo’s mouth curved into a wide smile, eyes glowing like the full moon above. She raised one arm, fingers curling around Nayeon’s wrist as her thumb brushed warm against the back of Nayeon’s hand. “I think God already did.”)

“-- Nayeon. Im Nayeon!”

Nayeon blinks slowly, her vision blurred. But something about Jihyo hovering above her still glows. Her tongue lies thick in her mouth, but she parts her lips and manages, “Angel.”

“Do you need to go to the hospital?” Jihyo is more in focus now, her grip firm around Nayeon’s shoulders as she sits the older woman upright. “You just collapsed all of a sudden.”

“I wanted to lie down,” Nayeon says tiredly. Her tongue is working now, but her thoughts are still slow. Which is probably why she asks, “Hey, have you ever thought about us?”

Jihyo raises her eyebrows. “At least ask me out for a coffee first, unnie.” She glances down at the can she’s holding. “This juice doesn’t count.”

“No, no. I mean, yes. Yes, coffee.” Nayeon snaps her mouth shut. Then she shakes her head. “No. No, not yet. I...I need to...”

Jihyo leans in again. Worry creases her forehead, and Nayeon sees it a hundred times over, in a hundred different lives. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” Nayeon manages, and then amends, “I will be. I just, I need to do something first.” She gets on her feet, giving Jihyo a reassuring pat on the shoulder and a smile. “We should get back to work.”

Jihyo looks like she doesn’t believe Nayeon even a little bit. But after Nayeon makes it to the door without a single stumble, the younger woman relents and follows her. 

Jihyo is fairly discreet in her monitoring for the rest of the day, but Nayeon still catches her peering around the cubicle wall once in a while, probably just to check whether Nayeon is still conscious. Which is a justified concern, Nayeon knows, but it doesn’t really help her get rid of the jumble of Jihyos already in her head.

“Please rest early tonight, unnie,” Jihyo tells her before they part ways for the evening. “Or take the day off tomorrow, if you have to. You haven’t used all of your sick days yet, right?”

“I’ll be fine,” Nayeon promises. “I’ll see you tomorrow, and hopefully I’ll be able to explain everything a little better.” 

She pulls Jihyo into a hug before she can think to stop herself. So she keeps it short, like a dream. Jihyo seems like she’s been through as much when Nayeon pulls back, if the dazed and confused look on her face is anything to go by.

Nayeon can relate, so she smiles again and gives the other a last wave before parting.

That night, Nayeon writes. She pens each word deliberately, about every way she remembers Jihyo. She tries her best to not come off as too sappy, and she definitely doesn’t want to be creepy, but she still tells the stories as she sees them.

So she writes things like, “You were a nurse in the war, saving anyone who needed it, and I was so proud”, and, “We died in a car crash that night, but it’s okay because we were happy”. 

Sometimes she adds little stick figure drawings, too, when words alone won’t do her memories justice. She sketches her best rendition of Joseon-style robes next to her sentence detailing that “we tried to catch frogs in the palace gardens once, but you decided they were too slimy”, and scrawls the two of them next to a river: “the juice we drank then tasted the best, too”.

Nayeon doesn’t go to bed until much later, but she sleeps well until her alarm rings.

“Hey,” Jihyo greets her when she steps into the office that morning. “Are you feeling any better, unnie?”

Nayeon smiles. “I am. Could we get lunch, later?”

“Yeah,” Dahyun butts in before Jihyo can reply. She gives the two of them an exaggerated wink. “Mina-unnie and I will leave you two alone.”

Jihyo crumples up some scrap paper and throws it at Dahyun’s head. But she agrees, and even suggests a cafe down the street. “So I can take you up on that offer for coffee,” she explains, and Nayeon tries not to take her too seriously, yet.

“Here.” Nayeon presents the notebook to Jihyo a few hours later, over their sandwiches and steaming drinks. 

Jihyo accepts it, opening the cover when Nayeon nods. “What’s this?”

“Either you’ll think I’m absolutely crazy,” says Nayeon, “or maybe you’ll start to remember, too.”

She fidgets for the next ten minutes or so, picking at the crust of her bread as Jihyo flips silently through the pages. Finally, Jihyo sets the book down, careful.

Nayeon takes a deep breath. “Well?”

“Unnie,” says Jihyo slowly, gently. “None of this… I don’t remember any of this.”

Nayeon winces. Because she’s looking back on it all now, frantically. She wonders what she’d think if Jeongyeon, or any of her other friends, suddenly presented her with half-formed, illustrated diary entries of supposed past lives she herself might not even believe in.

But then Jihyo’s hand is on top of hers, and she braces herself before looking up again.

Jihyo gives her a small smile. “I also don’t think that you’re crazy.”

Nayeon can’t keep her jaw from dropping just a little. “You don’t?” 

“Unnie,” Jihyo says. “Are you paying for the coffee?”

“What?” Nayeon blinks. “Yeah. Yeah, sure, I can.”

Jihyo’s smile grows. “Great. Can I borrow a pen?”

Nayeon happens to have one in her purse. She passes it over to Jihyo, who opens the notebook again, to the first clean page after Nayeon’s entries. She scribbles a passable imitation of Nayeon’s stick figures; not that Nayeon had set the bar very high in the first place. 

The notebook is upside down to Nayeon, but she can make out herself and Jihyo, and what looks like two hot cups of coffee sitting on the table drawn between them. Jihyo finishes the sketch, and then offers the pen back with something else:

“If those were really all of our previous lives, I’d like today to be the start of ours, now.”

Nayeon smiles, first. It quickly spreads into a grin, and then a laugh. Because Jihyo is sitting in front of her, with her gentle hands and soft mouth and eyes warmer than a cup of good coffee --

\-- and Nayeon’s head is clear for the first time in years.

-

Nayeon starts awake. She squints, because she’d forgotten to close the curtains again, and the first rays of morning sun slipping through are already blinding.

She feels a murmur against her neck, and then the top of Jihyo’s head nudges against her chin. The younger woman shuffles a little more, and Nayeon lifts her arm from Jihyo’s waist to let her find a comfortable position.

“Don’t go,” Jihyo whines, blindly reaching up to grab at Nayeon’s arm and pull it back around her.

“I’m not,” says Nayeon, and tugs her a little bit closer just to prove it. “Sorry. Did I wake you?”

Jihyo hums against Nayeon’s collarbone. “Maybe. Were you dreaming again?”

Nayeon thinks. “I’m not sure. It didn’t really feel like a past life, this time.”

“No?” Jihyo shifts back a little to meet her gaze, and Nayeon’s hand easily adjusts to rest on her hip instead. “What do you mean?”

“We were in high school, I think,” Nayeon tells her. “Sort of like the one I went to, actually.” She pauses. “Do you think that there are parallel universes?”

“I hope not,” says Jihyo. “Because then I’d be jealous of the me who gets to properly sleep in on Saturday mornings.”

Nayeon chuckles. Jihyo’s nose wrinkles at her morning breath, and Nayeon sticks out her tongue. “That Jihyo’s Nayeon probably doesn’t have as good a memory.”

“Maybe not,” Jihyo agrees. “But at least _my_ Nayeon will make breakfast to apologize for waking me up.”

Nayeon groans. “Five more minutes, then.”

“Five more minutes,” Jihyo allows. And then snuggles close again, tucking her head back under Nayeon’s chin.

Nayeon falls asleep to Jihyo’s slow breaths tickling the underside of her jaw. Neither manages to wake up again until past noon, and only because Jeongyeon calls to remind them to meet for noraebang later in the evening. Nayeon burns the eggs she tries to make for an extremely belated breakfast, but Jihyo magically produces boxes of takeout from the night before. 

“I think I’m in love with you,” Nayeon tells her as Jihyo throws the food into the microwave. 

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Jihyo says with a wink.

Nayeon rolls her eyes. And then pulls Jihyo into a kiss that doesn’t end until well after their lunch has finished warming.

**Author's Note:**

> come join me in loving nahyo with every fiber of our beings on twitter @moonrise31


End file.
